How to Engage Developers Through Q&A Site Sponsorships

Marketers know that to get your product, service, or event in front of your target audience, you need to go where they hang out. This is especially true when your target audience is made up of technical people, like developers.

We recently launched a new way to engage with developers called Site Sponsorships. (For context, Stack Overflow is just one of the many Stack Exchange community of Q&A sites). These sites range from topics such as English grammar to deep technical skills. The sites are hyper-targeted, making them a natural place for people to learn and share information on their mutual interests.

Read on to see how one company is using Site Sponsorships as a way to engage with their ideal audience.

Case Study: Strangeworks

Strangeworks, a company that aims to make quantum computing accessible via software designed for developers, recently kicked off their launch by sponsoring Stack Exchange’s quantum computing Q&A site.

The site has been in private beta for two weeks now, and already 93% of questions asked have been answered. Access to this technical knowledge will provide people with what they need to build quantum computing apps, level the playing field for developers, and ultimately help change the world through the advancement of technology.

A sponsorship generally entails enabling ads relevant to the subject and affixing a small "sponsored by..." logo in the upper-right corner. We've modeled this program after our "tag sponsorship" feature.

Strangeworks Founder and CEO William (whurley) Hurley chose Stack Overflow as a launch partner because of the community aspect. He says, “We wanted to build a community for quantum computing that wasn’t beholden to just us—to provide a voice that’s not tied to a specific platform. Stack Overflow is a community by developers, for developers, which is just what we were looking for. A vibrant, active community of the world’s developers.”